The protest had a clearly homophobic agenda. Manolis V, a journalist, was attacked by protesters while the police apparently did nothing: "The police is next to us. I shout 'They're beating me, aren't you going to do something?'," he wrote on Twitter. "I move away so I can look on from distance. A well-known Golden Dawn MP follows me. He punches me twice in the face and knocks me to the ground. While on the ground, I lose my glasses. The Golden Dawn MP kicks me. The police are just two steps away but turn their back."

Quote:

Golden Dawn know that the police are on their side, and so do those they attack. Manolis says he is afraid to go to the police and file a lawsuit, because he doesn't want them to have his name and address on record.

Why are the police on their side?

And they wonder why the rest of Europe doesn't want to give them more money?

Blows my mind sometimes. Are they totally unfamiliar with history? Are they THAT ignorant of the reason their country is having economic problems? Do they REALLY think that this new ideology will solve their problems?

ATHENS: Greek authorities have launched an investigation into allegations that riot police used a female protester as a human shield during demonstrations over a visit to Athens by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, this week.

Not every Greek was anti-Nazi. What is conveniently forgotten (more like "deliberately ignored") is that Nazi occupation of a country was only a bad deal for _some_ folks, depending on country and demographic. French director Marcel Ophuls "The Sorrow and the Pity" is worth watching.

The endless post-WWII preaching that one's own culture is worthless and that Europe should capitulate and become Eurabia/Eurafrica (despite no benefit whatever to native Europeans) is getting stale in some quarters. People can only be ruled by guilt for so long, and the idea that a country should benefit its own people first makes even more sense when resources are short.

The conflict with Greek Communists is relevant. Since the only way to stop serious Communists is to kill them, that was done during and after WWII. Moderates don't fight for their beliefs, so the Fascists and (f)ascists rose to varying degrees of power.

Blows my mind sometimes. Are they totally unfamiliar with history? Are they THAT ignorant of the reason their country is having economic problems? Do they REALLY think that this new ideology will solve their problems?

I would imagine that a lot of Greeks would feel 'never again', but I would not be surprised if quite a few probably feel that the restoration of democracy, joining the EU etc was a big mistake, and the cause of the current calamity.

I find the viability of the Golden dawn puzzling as there are Greek people who lived under Nazi occupation who are still alive.

I don't. Greece is in a really shitty state economically. They're getting rather close to the conditions that helped Hitler rise to power. So long as the EU keeps banging on about austerity this will grow.

Blows my mind sometimes. Are they totally unfamiliar with history? Are they THAT ignorant of the reason their country is having economic problems? Do they REALLY think that this new ideology will solve their problems?

Well, here's the thing: it probably would solve their problems.

Don't confuse villainy with ineffectiveness. Fascism is basically a less touchy-feely form of socialism that strips away the patina of respectability. And, in doing so, it makes socialism 'work' by encouraging tribal emotions and using a full spectrum of techniques to ensure compliance.

The protest had a clearly homophobic agenda. Manolis V, a journalist, was attacked by protesters while the police apparently did nothing: "The police is next to us. I shout 'They're beating me, aren't you going to do something?'," he wrote on Twitter. "I move away so I can look on from distance. A well-known Golden Dawn MP follows me. He punches me twice in the face and knocks me to the ground. While on the ground, I lose my glasses. The Golden Dawn MP kicks me. The police are just two steps away but turn their back."

Quote:

Golden Dawn know that the police are on their side, and so do those they attack. Manolis says he is afraid to go to the police and file a lawsuit, because he doesn't want them to have his name and address on record.

Why are the police on their side?

And they wonder why the rest of Europe doesn't want to give them more money?

I read shortly after the last Greek election that while the Golden Dawn received ~10% of the overall popular vote, 50% of the police voted for them. I can't remember the source.

No small amount of irony that great unification experiment of Europe is the very thing that causes a resurgence of Naziism there.

The protest had a clearly homophobic agenda. Manolis V, a journalist, was attacked by protesters while the police apparently did nothing: "The police is next to us. I shout 'They're beating me, aren't you going to do something?'," he wrote on Twitter. "I move away so I can look on from distance. A well-known Golden Dawn MP follows me. He punches me twice in the face and knocks me to the ground. While on the ground, I lose my glasses. The Golden Dawn MP kicks me. The police are just two steps away but turn their back."

Quote:

Golden Dawn know that the police are on their side, and so do those they attack. Manolis says he is afraid to go to the police and file a lawsuit, because he doesn't want them to have his name and address on record.

Why are the police on their side?

And they wonder why the rest of Europe doesn't want to give them more money?

I read shortly after the last Greek election that while the Golden Dawn received ~10% of the overall popular vote, 50% of the police voted for them. I can't remember the source.

No small amount of irony that great unification experiment of Europe is the very thing that causes a resurgence of Naziism there.

I don't see it as a great unification experiment, at all. It was never structured that way. It's more like monetary colonialism within Europe. It was only interbank lending in Euros that let bankers & Greek insiders make a killing, and it's now the same mechanism leaving the Greek govt holding the bag.

If it had been done under a true unification scheme, then it wouldn't be the Greek govt holding the bag, but rather the banks themselves & the United European govt. It's like holding the govt of Florida responsible for all the bad real estate loans made there...

The protest had a clearly homophobic agenda. Manolis V, a journalist, was attacked by protesters while the police apparently did nothing: "The police is next to us. I shout 'They're beating me, aren't you going to do something?'," he wrote on Twitter. "I move away so I can look on from distance. A well-known Golden Dawn MP follows me. He punches me twice in the face and knocks me to the ground. While on the ground, I lose my glasses. The Golden Dawn MP kicks me. The police are just two steps away but turn their back."

Quote:

Golden Dawn know that the police are on their side, and so do those they attack. Manolis says he is afraid to go to the police and file a lawsuit, because he doesn't want them to have his name and address on record.

Why are the police on their side?

And they wonder why the rest of Europe doesn't want to give them more money?

I read shortly after the last Greek election that while the Golden Dawn received ~10% of the overall popular vote, 50% of the police voted for them. I can't remember the source.

No small amount of irony that great unification experiment of Europe is the very thing that causes a resurgence of Naziism there.

I don't see it as a great unification experiment, at all. It was never structured that way. It's more like monetary colonialism within Europe. It was only interbank lending in Euros that let bankers & Greek insiders make a killing, and it's now the same mechanism leaving the Greek govt holding the bag.

If it had been done under a true unification scheme, then it wouldn't be the Greek govt holding the bag, but rather the banks themselves & the United European govt. It's like holding the govt of Florida responsible for all the bad real estate loans made there...

Yeah, I mean obviously it was/is a highly flawed monetary union that was going to implode when the first crisis hit. You could even called the Maastricht Treaty a suicide pact. But I do still believe that it was a form of 'unification experiment': open borders, shared currency, policy objectives and standards -- and all sold under the banner of cooperation and unity. It's fundamentally a monetary/fiscal union but there are strong political ideological underpinnings to the Eurozone experiment. Ultimately, of course, it's a half-assed political union joined to a half-assed -- and doomed-to-fail -- fiscal union.

At this point, the only way out is to go full measures: either become a single sovereign entity or a break-up. As there are such major cultural/economic/political obstacles to the former, the latter seems pretty much inevitable to me. As they'll tell you in the VR: open relationships almost never work.

Then there was Spain under the dictatorship of Generalísimo Franco until 1974.

Franco saved Spain from Stalinism then from Hitler (by not joining the Axis). Spanish support for him is understandable since the only way to fight the Communist threat was to kill Communists. As the Communist threat receded, Franco became obsolete.

Greece currently has no such threat. Reflexes designed for one sort of problem don't necessarily work for others.

I don't see it as a great unification experiment, at all. It was never structured that way. It's more like monetary colonialism within Europe. It was only interbank lending in Euros that let bankers & Greek insiders make a killing, and it's now the same mechanism leaving the Greek govt holding the bag.

Of course, because the hundreds of billions of Euros (or Euro-equivalent) that Greece received in non-refundable investment over the last decades from the European Union were just a sleight of hand. All the highways, ports, subways, railways, airports, schools, industrial parks and stadiums that were built with the accession and structural cohesion funds are only used by the greek insiders. And the social help funds, the research and development grants or the common agricultural policy funds of course only help the bankers.

And the fact that large swaths of the sectors that contribute to the greek GDP don't pay taxes - illegaly through tax evation or very much legally through constitutional exemption - of course didn't have anything to do at all with the Greek government being left holding the bag. It's all everybody else's fault.

If it had been done under a true unification scheme, then it wouldn't be the Greek govt holding the bag, but rather the banks themselves & the United European govt. It's like holding the govt of Florida responsible for all the bad real estate loans made there...

You got that wrong. If, for example, Florida goes on a state spending spree for a decade and doesn't get its tax collection done, it's still first and foremost Florida that's bankrupt.

I don't see it as a great unification experiment, at all. It was never structured that way. It's more like monetary colonialism within Europe. It was only interbank lending in Euros that let bankers & Greek insiders make a killing, and it's now the same mechanism leaving the Greek govt holding the bag.

Of course, because the hundreds of billions of Euros (or Euro-equivalent) that Greece received in non-refundable investment over the last decades from the European Union were just a sleight of hand. All the highways, ports, subways, railways, airports, schools, industrial parks and stadiums that were built with the accession and structural cohesion funds are only used by the greek insiders. And the social help funds, the research and development grants or the common agricultural policy funds of course only help the bankers.

And the fact that large swaths of the sectors that contribute to the greek GDP don't pay taxes - illegaly through tax evation or very much legally through constitutional exemption - of course didn't have anything to do at all with the Greek government being left holding the bag. It's all everybody else's fault.

I understand all of that, but I also understand that those things weren't the motivations for lending to Greece, at all. Tax collection in Greece was the same before the crisis as now, and was known to be that way. The motivation was to take a profit off the top of every deal, to increase banking exec's compensation thru big profits. It was the same in the US. It really didn't matter if the debt was ever repaid, or if the bank went bust, because the perps got theirs off the top, up front, before the nature of the "investment" became apparent. And there was plenty of it, enough to turn otherwise honest & prudent people to the dark side of finance.

Of course Greeks benefited at the time, and their infrastructure was improved, too. But that doesn't mean they can pay, at all, or that the debt was honorable in the first place. Beating them down only reduces their ability to pay.

The whole point of the current exercise is to save the other European banks involved, and to put the pain on Greeks & the other peripheral economies rather than on the unified economy where it belongs. Factories, farms & lenders in the European core hummed & unemployment was incredibly low on account of all the buying in the periphery, so it's not like they got nothing out of the deal, either. Quite the contrary.

One thing I'm sure of is that demonizing the people in the peripheral economies won't change a thing except for the worse, because all of this occurred at a level way above their heads. As I've offered, it's like blaming Floridians for their housing bubble rather than international financiers who made it possible.

If it had been done under a true unification scheme, then it wouldn't be the Greek govt holding the bag, but rather the banks themselves & the United European govt. It's like holding the govt of Florida responsible for all the bad real estate loans made there...

You got that wrong. If, for example, Florida goes on a state spending spree for a decade and doesn't get its tax collection done, it's still first and foremost Florida that's bankrupt.

Quite true, but the housing bubble in Florida didn't put the state on the hook in the same way that the Greek bubble economy put the Greek govt on the hook, at all. That's the same for all the peripheral economies. The core govts are trying to put it all off on the periphery- "They borrowed more than they can pay, lazy southerners!" What their people really need to say is "You let our Banks do it, assholes! You bought into their greedy song & dance, and now we have to pay too!"

"We have to pay too" & the reasons for that are at the core of it, a realization that leaders in Germany & other creditor nations are desperately trying to prevent. One way or another, that's what will happen, and the financial elite of Europe are trying to not be part of that "We". It's the same in the US. Austerity is for the Little People, not for the perps, because they're the winners, because they own.

If it had been done under a true unification scheme, then it wouldn't be the Greek govt holding the bag, but rather the banks themselves & the United European govt. It's like holding the govt of Florida responsible for all the bad real estate loans made there...

You got that wrong. If, for example, Florida goes on a state spending spree for a decade and doesn't get its tax collection done, it's still first and foremost Florida that's bankrupt.

Quite true, but the housing bubble in Florida didn't put the state on the hook in the same way that the Greek bubble economy put the Greek govt on the hook, at all. That's the same for all the peripheral economies.

Greece got into trouble because they increased state spending way too much and hid the fact until they were utterly bankrupt. A lot of people got their money from bloated state spending, so every reduction in state spending led to a further contraction of the Greek economy. If a state of the US had done the same, the results would've been the same. The local govt would be bankrupt and try to slash expenses, the local economy would take a hit.

The only difference would be that the federal government expenses in the area would stay intact.

If it had been done under a true unification scheme, then it wouldn't be the Greek govt holding the bag, but rather the banks themselves & the United European govt. It's like holding the govt of Florida responsible for all the bad real estate loans made there...

You got that wrong. If, for example, Florida goes on a state spending spree for a decade and doesn't get its tax collection done, it's still first and foremost Florida that's bankrupt.

Quite true, but the housing bubble in Florida didn't put the state on the hook in the same way that the Greek bubble economy put the Greek govt on the hook, at all. That's the same for all the peripheral economies.

Greece got into trouble because they increased state spending way too much and hid the fact until they were utterly bankrupt. A lot of people got their money from bloated state spending, so every reduction in state spending led to a further contraction of the Greek economy. If a state of the US had done the same, the results would've been the same. The local govt would be bankrupt and try to slash expenses, the local economy would take a hit.

The only difference would be that the federal government expenses in the area would stay intact.

Except that it wasn't really "hidden" at all, other than with the complicity of the people lending to them. There was no due diligence, only greed. All of this was accomplished with extremely complex instruments, deceptively so. These weren't deals that Greeks couldn't refuse, but rather ones they couldn't understand. Like this-

In many respects, it's just an example of double dealing- set the client up to fail, then bet heavily that they will, because you know more than the counterparties in the side deals. Meanwhile, your fees are collected off the top, and go straight into your pockets.

Your remark wrt federal expenses in Florida says more than you know. WRT Florida, the increased flow of federal money to support UI, SS, & various forms of welfare softens the impact on Floridians considerably, along with continued support in terms of expenditures on military bases, customs, so forth & so on. In Greece, that falls entirely on the Greek state, resulting in cascading financial catastrophe.

Greeks can't pay, so that debt will be written off one way or another. The appeal of the Fascists in Greece is based on the idea that they would likely renounce that debt, embark on a fiercely nationalistic agenda, always appealing when hard times are perceived to be imposed by outside forces.

What all the govts involved, the US included, are trying to avoid is recognition that current rules of international finance are very badly broken & that the worldwide financial sector must be brought to heel to both solve this crisis & avoid recurrence. What EU govts are also trying to avoid is the truth that political union must accompany monetary union for viability to occur.

Greece got into trouble because they increased state spending way too much and hid the fact until they were utterly bankrupt. A lot of people got their money from bloated state spending, so every reduction in state spending led to a further contraction of the Greek economy. If a state of the US had done the same, the results would've been the same. The local govt would be bankrupt and try to slash expenses, the local economy would take a hit.

The only difference would be that the federal government expenses in the area would stay intact.

That's a pretty big difference though. The EU is a fairly minimalist government, it's overall expenditures are relatively small and it's functions relatively unimportant to the average citizen compared to the functions of their country. Prior to the financial crisis the 2007 budget of the EU was only €120b per year, though for obvious reasons that number has gone up substantially since then.

In a lot of ways I think the EU is the sort of minimalist federal state that American conservatives want to emulate, and I think it's also a good example of how that can go terribly wrong.

It's also hard to compare the US to the EU in that the states with the biggest budgetary problems, also tend to be those rich populous states that contribute the most to federal tax revenues only to see it redistributed to smaller poorer states.

I would agree insofar as they say they want a minimalist government, but in reality, they want to push down certain powers to the states to give them as opportunity to undo certain legal structures and programs that stick in their craw, like greater support for gay marriage, civil rights in general, education, while still funneling trillions into the military, and subsidizing oil companies.

As for Greece itself.. being Greek myself, having a lot of family there, having a mother who spends a third of the year there and probably inheriting some property there.. I have very mixed feelings..

The incident OP have mixed causes....

First and foremost, Greece, being a small country that has felt picked on by the one remaining world power, has always exhibited a bit more nationalism than some countries. During the cold war, the US supported the the military junta, and also the Turks to some degree during the crisis. This increases fear of powers outside the country can easily, and ironically, rebound back into right wing nationalism as exhibited by the increased support for Golden Dawn.

I have never been a fan if militarize police. Much like here, they tend to attract authoritarian assholes, and to support other tough sounding authoritarian politics. Hence the much larger support for Golden Dawn than in the populace at large. This is also evident here. Try going to a diner or bar frequented by cops, even in the most liberal areas, and listen to political conversations. It can be downright scary.

Third, Greece is in dire economic straits, and much of the tension right now is that outside powers have complete control. At the same time though, they have no means of digging out, unless they sell off all their national assets and they become a country of tenants within their own borders. And this would occur at the expense of salaried people, while those of means can hide their fortunes abroad, leave the country, or collude to get paid out of the rescue (the last being the foreign investment banks).

Much of the crisis is artificial, the result of huge amounts of leverage due to CDS contracts. The banks are insolvent doe to their own actions for the most part, but the goal is to insulate them from public exposure, and the natural consequences of their actions.

But, my fellow Greeks have also created a culture of corruption, graft and tax evasion, so until they get their house in order, nothing can be done, even if they rest of Europe cared.. which they really don't.

Third, Greece is in dire economic straits, and much of the tension right now is that outside powers have complete control. At the same time though, they have no means of digging out, unless they sell off all their national assets and they become a country of tenants within their own borders. And this would occur at the expense of salaried people, while those of means can hide their fortunes abroad, leave the country, or collude to get paid out of the rescue (the last being the foreign investment banks).

Or take plan B, a la Iceland- tell your creditors to stuff it, exit the Euro, deal with the consequences. That's probably becoming a more desirable option by the minute, unattractive as it is.

Third, Greece is in dire economic straits, and much of the tension right now is that outside powers have complete control. At the same time though, they have no means of digging out, unless they sell off all their national assets and they become a country of tenants within their own borders. And this would occur at the expense of salaried people, while those of means can hide their fortunes abroad, leave the country, or collude to get paid out of the rescue (the last being the foreign investment banks).

Or take plan B, a la Iceland- tell your creditors to stuff it, exit the Euro, deal with the consequences. That's probably becoming a more desirable option by the minute, unattractive as it is.

Iceland never exited the Euro.

On top of that, their economies are nothing alike: Iceland: poulation of 320.000 people, and exports worth $5.3 billion Greece: population of 11.304.000 people, exports worth $28.16 billion

To break that down per capita: Iceland: $16,562Greece: $2,314

Now add the fact that Greece has a corruption problem, an inefficient public sector, rampant tax evasion etc. and Iceland doesn't.

And then tell me whether Greece is in really in a similar position as Iceland.

Iceland didn't exit the Euro, they nationalized their banks and wiped out the bad debt. They refused to bankrupt the country to save a bunch of kleptocrats. Since the debts are to banks outside Greece, I guess that Germany and France should let their banks fail?

And Europe wants them to be more right wing economically. These are unconnected issues. Most European countries have active fascist leaning political parties.

Right or left doesn't matter, it is just two sides of the coin of an oppressive authoritan society. Most Greek people are ardent belivers in authoritan oppressive politics, playing ping pong between a fascist military coup d'etat or a communist lynch-mob uprising.

The "debate" of left or right is just a red herring to the much more important currently acute issue of personal, economic and political freedom versus oppressive authoritanism.

Third, Greece is in dire economic straits, and much of the tension right now is that outside powers have complete control. At the same time though, they have no means of digging out, unless they sell off all their national assets and they become a country of tenants within their own borders. And this would occur at the expense of salaried people, while those of means can hide their fortunes abroad, leave the country, or collude to get paid out of the rescue (the last being the foreign investment banks).

Or take plan B, a la Iceland- tell your creditors to stuff it, exit the Euro, deal with the consequences. That's probably becoming a more desirable option by the minute, unattractive as it is.

Iceland never exited the Euro.

On top of that, their economies are nothing alike: Iceland: poulation of 320.000 people, and exports worth $5.3 billion Greece: population of 11.304.000 people, exports worth $28.16 billion

To break that down per capita: Iceland: $16,562Greece: $2,314

Now add the fact that Greece has a corruption problem, an inefficient public sector, rampant tax evasion etc. and Iceland doesn't.

And then tell me whether Greece is in really in a similar position as Iceland.

I realize that Iceland always had their own currency, the Krona. Perhaps I didn't phrase that properly.

Other than neither Iceland nor Greece could actually pay in the measure demanded, their situations are mostly dissimilar. So what? Iceland was actually in a better position to pay than Greece, given their level of exports.

Hell, for all we know, the profit potential in that for rather powerful derivative players may well exceed the profit potential of any other arrangement. We can't see all the cards- we can't even see who's holding them all or how much influence they have on the govts involved...

Of course Greeks benefited at the time, and their infrastructure was improved, too. But that doesn't mean they can pay, at all, or that the debt was honorable in the first place. Beating them down only reduces their ability to pay.

I don't think you quite understand: the hundreds of billions I was talking about are all non-refundable. They are not debt, they were and are economic aid for Greece from the European Union. That's the whole point of the European Union budget, in particular the regional development and cohesion funds - investing in poorly developed regions, so that they can catch up to the more developed regions, and ensure that the citizens of those regions can enjoy at least some of the benefits that others have.

Granted, some of those funds - not the C.A.P., but the development investment - are supposed to finance just part of the projects, with the rest (usually half, nowadays down to 10-15%) by the regions which propose them. That's because the EU wants to make sure that the local authorities have a direct stake in making sure that whatever they propose as projects has a certain value and return on investment for them.

Jhhnn wrote:

The whole point of the current exercise is to save the other European banks involved, and to put the pain on Greeks & the other peripheral economies rather than on the unified economy where it belongs. Factories, farms & lenders in the European core hummed & unemployment was incredibly low on account of all the buying in the periphery, so it's not like they got nothing out of the deal, either. Quite the contrary.

Except of course it wasn't, because in the period between the introduction of the Euro and the onset of the financial crisis, (some of) the southern economies were booming while for instance Germany was stagnating, had high unemployment and was at most only recovering at the end of that period. And you know why that was so? Because - while certainly not negligible - the southern economies are simply not big enough in terms of trade to actually make a fundamental difference: this is something that you could observe in the other direction in the last few years, with Germany being able to compensate most if not all of the dramatic drop in trade with the hardest hit countries in the Eurozone with increases with its major trading partners, like the US or China.

And, we should mention that of course the lenders took a heavy hit in the debt restructuring process through the loss of half their nominal claims and through the long extension of the debt repayment plan, which means that all in all they lost two thirds of their claims against Greece.

Jhhnn wrote:

Or take plan B, a la Iceland- tell your creditors to stuff it, exit the Euro, deal with the consequences. That's probably becoming a more desirable option by the minute, unattractive as it is.

What people keep forgeting when talking about Iceland is that Iceland only survived because they quickly agreeded to implement reform measures and so received a immense loan from the IMF and the nordic countries very early in the crisis. The total package of $4.6 billion would be equivalent to a $161 billion loan to Greece if you compensate for the population difference. And, like said, this happened early on in the crisis, not almost two years afterwards like in Greece.

Also, I don't think you realize just how unattractive the option would be for Greece - high devaluation of currency certainly can kickstart exports, but it also increases the costs for imports. Greece has to import 60% of the net energy it uses, Iceland only imports 15%, due to its very specific and almost unique natural advantages in terms of renewable energy production. Think about that discrepancy for a moment, and you will see how much harder Greece would be hit by a rapidly devaluating currency.

And Europe wants them to be more right wing economically. These are unconnected issues. Most European countries have active fascist leaning political parties.

Right or left doesn't matter, it is just two sides of the coin of an oppressive authoritan society. Most Greek people are ardent belivers in authoritan oppressive politics, playing ping pong between a fascist military coup d'etat or a communist lynch-mob uprising.

The "debate" of left or right is just a red herring to the much more important currently acute issue of personal, economic and political freedom versus oppressive authoritanism.

Nice try, but the communists never had power in Greece, nor were they ever implicated in any violence. That was just an attempt to deflect what the OP was about.. the fact that police in general tend to be authoritarian assholes.. way much more so than their host societies in many cases.

Remember the vote disparity.. up to half the police voted for Golden Dawn.

Yeah, but that's a not sequitur in this case. We don;t need a chorus of "the other side does it too" every time bunch of cops beat up some protesters. Especially in a country in which the other side never had power. It's just an attempt to draw false equivalency.